After been busy diving every day we decided to go to the beach to relax. When we arrived there was nobody at the beach. We had it all to ourselves… or at least we thought so. But when we came back out of the water our bag was gone. Stolen, gone, vanished. We thought we had kept an eye on those few (3 persons) passing by. My first thought… My sunglasses!!! My first real sunglasses that I decided to pay some extra for because I knew I would wear them every day for 212 days on this trip. I started running around with my Polish anger bursting through my veins thinking that the guy couldn’t be far away. The island was pocket size! Suddenly I see our stuff scattered over the ground behind some bushes. My sunglasses were there and so were our clothes and hotel key but the wallet was of course empty and Christoffer’s cellphone was gone as well. Luckily, it was only 8 dollars which was the money we needed for the transport and the cellphone was quite old.

Our last day, we decided to go on a tour around the archipelago. For the first time in my life, I saw wild dolphins. I truly wanted to be Jacques Mayol (Le Grande Bleu) in that moment and just jump into the water and play with them.

Next stop San Blas islands.

Steffi

written by  Steffi & Chris on October 25, 2009 from Bocas del Toro, Panama
from the travel blog: 212 days
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A ghetto on water. That was our first impression. We couldn’t have been more wrong. We arrived to one of these amazing islands on a cloudy Sunday morning. An island as big as 3 or 4 football fields inhabited by 400 Kuna Indians.

Apparently, we were the only white people and no other tourists. I felt like Morgan Pålsson (utrikesreporter) when walking around there trying to talk Spanish with a heavy Swedish accent.

San Blas is a series of 365 islands of which only 49 are inhabited by the independent Kuna Indians. Some of the other islands are coconut islands where families takes turns in living on for 3 months selling coconuts to Colombian boats.

I have never seen a more crowded place but this wasn’t a negative thing here. It was rather the contrary. People helped each other and enjoyed being near one another.

These people live their whole lives with sand under their feet and in their hammocks. They are “produced” there and they eat, sleep, get married and are later buried in their lovable hammocks.

The Kunas hunt fish, collect cocunuts and make molas. A Mola, in the Kuna culture, is a traditional blouse worn by the Indian Women. It is made from two intricately appliquéd panels. These colorful graphic panels are collected as an art form.

The island was crowded with happy children playing and running around. When living like this I guess they have a lot of time “producing babies”.

The first day here they took us out to a tiny little island and it felt like me and Chris had skipped engagement, marriage and just fast forwarded to honey moon. Paradise is the only word I can describe this island with. At 12 o’clock they came back with the boat to give us a delicious meal of freshly caught fish with rice and vegetables. After a few hours we met a guy from the States who had decided to go travelling on his own. We had a really nice time together and hanged out again two days later.

There’s so much that I want to write about this experience but it’s a blog not a book :) Next stop Panama City.

Estefanie

written by  Steffi & Chris on November 2, 2009 from Carti Icotupo, Panama
from the travel blog: 212 days
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That night we went out to get a nice dinner and also try out one of the casinos in the city. We went to a Italian restaurant and had a really, really nice dinner and after all that food we both got so tired so we didn’t feel like going out but on the way home we ended up still going into one of the casinos just to have a look around and we spent 4 whole dollars in the slot machines =)

The next day we slept for as long as we wanted and then we got up to go to a Huge shopping mall where we went walking around for almost the entire day and since I still have some pain in my foot this wasn’t the easiest thing in the world but still we found some things to buy. (Read: Steffi found some things to buy, including a super pink couch but I had to say no.) And it was cool to see the big American sized shopping mall and all the mannequins that had huge breasts and looked like playboy models. Or at least it was for the first hour or so after that I got a little grumpy.
In Panama City there is one thing that you cannot miss if you visit and that is the Panama Canal it is a huge canal that joins the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean thus saving a lot of ships the long trip around South America. The Canal was built in the beginning of the 20th century and at the 10th October 1913 the two oceans was joined together so the first ship was able to pass trough from one side to the other at 7th January 1914.

Since the canal has been there for so long the ships have grown a lot so now they build ships according to panamax size which means that they are built for the maximum size of the panama canal and they pass through the locks with only inches on each side, at the time we where there we saw one huge ship pass through and although it didn’t look like it had much room left it was still not the biggest size possible. This ship had to pay 90 000 dollars to pass through and that is still cheaper than going around South America. We also saw two “small” ships go through the locks with some tourists and they had to pay 1500 dollars each.
At the moment they are building new sets of locks so that when they are ready they will be able to accommodate ships with twice the cargo capacity these ships are now called Post panamax class and until the new locks are complete they have to take the long way around South America.

A little while later we had gone to bed and he came back into the room and started flicking the light on and off we asked another guy that was standing next to him what was going on and he said that the guy had started looking for his girlfriend inside the walls and that he still just heard everyone speaking Dutch. The guy left the hostel early the same morning.

Next we are off to Cuba for two weeks.

Bye bye
Chris

written by  Steffi & Chris on November 5, 2009 from Panama, Panama
from the travel blog: 212 days
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We came here by plane from Panama City and everyone had told us that it was so hard to get through customs or that it took really long time to get your bags or just problems in general. We didn’t get any of these though, we came filled in the papers and just went through, I had some problems with the immigration lady but that was more because of my Spanish than anything else, she just ended up giving me a look like “stupid tourist, learn Spanish” when she waved me by.
After we had gotten to our Casa particular which means that you rent a room in someone’s home I went to bed and when I started to relax after the trip I started to feel this massive fever that had been built up during the trip so I spent the night freezing while my body was at around 40 degrees, dreaming that Steffi was a rabid dog and even hit her in my sleep, so the next day we went to the tourist hospital where I got some new antibiotics and got cleaned up =)

me and mom

Chris

written by  Steffi & Chris on November 14, 2009 from La Habana, Cuba
from the travel blog: 212 days
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I had spoken with a guy on Couchsurfing for a couple of months and he said we were welcome to stay with him when we arrived. At this time we were oblivious of the fact that it was in fact in the ghetto.

Where the roads are made of dirt, the electricity and the running water is high jacked, the house walls made of sheet metal and the air tastes like marijuana. Welcome to the Watahouse ghetto.

We were advised not to walk outside the house alone. Only in Kingston there are approximately three murders a day. So the first day we relaxed in the house just chit chatting and eating good food. We also watched the news where they showed three people in our age that had been killed with an uzi in some gang war the previous night.

The kitchen

One of the days we went to visit the market down town. The smell was at times terrible. There were sick dogs eating out of the trashes fighting to survive, meat covered with too many flies but of course very cheap vegetables and very cheap food to buy… We walked that whole day without even meeting or seeing any other white people or tourists which was an experience in itself. We didn’t see any other tourists until we went to the famous I-Scream shop to eat the most delicious ice-cream you can imagine. I guess that, where there’s ice cream there are white people.

Next day, another couchsurfer arrived. Mel from the United States. Passing through Jamaica from India on her way back home. The first night together we went up to the rooftop of Hilton and Pegasus hotel to get a look of Kingston by night.

The last day we decided to go outside Kingston and went to Port Antonio to bathe in the same waterfall as Bob Marley. On our way there, we passed through some rasta villages up in the mountains. Unfortunately, we weren't able to visit them because of the possible danger.

The same day as we were leaving we made it to the Bob Marley museum before the flight which was great. Slightly expensive but worth the money.

Our host asked how old Christoffer parents were and he replied that both are over 60. Chocked he answered. No one lives that long in Jamaica...

Coming to Kingston was an experience none of us will ever forget. I learned a lot from what we saw and experienced here. Sadly, Jamaica is a country with a lot of problems unsolved. Violent crime as well as serious economic problems. I’m glad though Andrew was able to host us and wish him good luck with his free lancing.

And this is where we say Jamaica Farewell.

Blessed.
Steffi

written by  Steffi & Chris on November 15, 2009 from Kingston, Jamaica
from the travel blog: 212 days
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After getting stuck for a little while in immigration we went to collect our bags, only Steffis bag wasn’t there. All other bags were off the band including mine but Steffis was nowhere to be found.
so we had to talk to the staff working there and after 10 really nervous minutes they told us the bag had been located and would come out shortly.

In Port of Spain we were going to be couchsurfing with a female for the first time so we just got a taxi straight from the airport to her house, and her apartment was the best thing that could have happened to us after the ghetto, so we got to take a nice proper shower and just get to sit down in a couch for a while.

led zeppelin

Next day we got a ride down to the city center and we went exploring for the whole day and Steffi even managed to squeeze in some shopping in there, and we also found a ex US military who although a little smelly showed us a little around the city.

At 5 our host was finished at work and we had decided to meet up so we could catch a ride back to her house but on the way we made a little detour and went up to this beautiful mountain with a monastery at the top were we almost caught the sunset. We also met one of the monks who gave us some inside info about the place and then he tried to sell us some monk made yoghurt.

Also mr crazy himself was on the mountain, an ex convict who really found God, We gave him a lift down the mountain and all the way he told us that he wasn’t really a talker but a listener and that he had seen Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ is about 30cm tall and shining and blinking white, he is accompanied by two angels and when he speaks the whole world shakes. Or at least that’s how he had seen him when he was sick with cancer and lying in the hospital… I’m thinking that maybe it was a broken light and he was high on medication, there were a lot more things he told us but now we know that when he dies he is going to check at the pearly gates to see if me and Steffi are going to be allowed in or if the devil is getting us...

That same night we chilled in our host’s apartment drank some Swedish vodka and ate the world’s best popcorn, sweet kettle popcorn.
Next day we got up earlier or at least earlier than we ever got up when we was in the Ghetto and then we went driving to check the ferries to Tobago (they where full) and the ferry that I’m sitting on when writing this that is taking us to Venezuela and the new continent.

We also took a drive up to the north coast to see some beaches and really beautiful scenery on the way step curving roads going across the mountains.
On Monday morning we got up early and took the buss back to the airport to get a stand by ticket to Tobago and that way getting the most out of our stay there.

Chris.

written by  Steffi & Chris on November 22, 2009 from Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago
from the travel blog: 212 days
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We started with calling the Venezuelan ferry and reserved our seats and also made sure it was alright to pay for them the same morning.
That done we went on the book the afternoon boat back to Trinidad so that we were going to be able to some diving up in the other side of the island and still have time to go back the same day.
This is where everything started to go wrong the afternoon ferry was canceled so there was only one in the morning, o.k. we figured we will just fly back as well, me not thinking about the no flying after diving rules that are.
We called the airport and they said there was plenty of room left so despite of better judgment we didn’t reserve the seats.
Instead we got the bus that was supposed to take 1 – 1½ hours up to the village of Speyside and where all the good diving is supposed to be.
On the way the bus got into an accident and had to turn around to go back to Scarborough to report the accident this took in total about

our lifesaviour

expensive pasta for two

Some of you might think that this is where the story ends but it goes on. The next morning we once again got up had breakfast and a little walk along the beach relaxing and intent on enjoying our day in Tobago, we went back to the hotel to get our camera and swimming gear and also call the airport again.
That’s when we found out there was only one flight left and it was leaving at 2, it was now 10 o’clock that gave us only 3 hours to get to the airport and it had taken us almost 6 to get to where we were from the airport.
There was only one thing to do we threw everything back into the bags and went for a taxi back.
Luckily one came and it only took 1½ hours to get to the airport so when we got there we were able to get on standby and even catch an earlier flight to Port of Spain and back to our wonderful host.
Wednesday morning we took the boat to Venezuela and that’s were I’m sitting now it was probably one of the fastest visits to the island of Tobago but it was really beautiful with a lot of hills and small mountains small rivers and always close to the sea.

Chris

written by  Steffi & Chris on November 24, 2009 from Speyside, Trinidad and Tobago
from the travel blog: 212 days
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Early in the morning we took the ferry from Cheguramas to Güiria in Venezuela. The ferry took about 3,5 hours. Güiria was probably the sleepiest town we’ve yet visited and full of weirdos. While we sat there in a park in the middle of the town discussing how to get to Carúpano one of them (also a taxi driver) tried to convince us to go with him instantly by telling us that if we stayed in the park we’d probably get killed and mugged during the night. Showing this with very, very clear hand movements. Especially the stabbing part was hard to miss, even for Chris who didn’t understand much of the Spanish.

We felt more and more eager to leave but everything was extremely expensive. The bus didn’t leave in several hours so we ended up taking the por puesto (shared taxi) which didn’t cost much more than the bus. The fare took about 2 hours. On the way we were stopped twice to be body searched. First they went through our bags thoroughly opening every zipper there was. Then they body searched Christoffer who had to follow one of the machine gun armed guards and strip butt naked behind a house. The guard pointed at Christoffers underwear as a sign to take them off. Why? The guard wanted to make sure he wasn’t hiding any gun in his underwear....

It was exhaustingly hot outside that day which made our driver very thirsty. And what tastes better than a cold beer? So while driving to Carupano our driver drank beers dumping them on the side of the road one after the other. We arrived in Carupano around 5 pm and started looking for a hostel. We soon realized that the Footprint’s South American handbook that we had bought in Sweden was total crap. Nothing was correct. Everything was triple price (or sometimes even more) in comparison to the book. We got really tired trying to find a place to sleep at. We found a hotel where I could sit down with our bags and wait when Christoffer ran around looking for hostels. At this point we were in our worst conditions yet on this trip. Chocked (due to the prices), tired, hungry, stinking of sweat and angry at a lousy book. Chris came back and just shook his head. Tired, hungry, stinking and disappointed we asked if we could get a better price at the hotel where I had been waiting. We got a room for 90 BsF which would give us a luxury room any other place but here it was a shabby tiny room with a small bed. As soon as we went inside and had unloaded the bags ready to get something to eat the room just suddenly turned black. When we opened the door it seemed a major power outage had turned the whole city black.

I thought someone was pulling our legs and apparently there was. His name; Chavez. We soon learned that this was a common thing in Venezuela. Chavez urge Venezuelans to turn down their air conditioners. He's even lectured the country on the bracing virtues of a cold, three-minute shower. Many people here help themselves to electricity for free by splicing wires onto power lines...

Chavez also made a joke on television telling the people that he needs only three-minute showers: "I've counted and I don't end up stinking; I guarantee it."

Anyways, the power outage lasted for about two hours so we knocked ourselves out and slept for several hours. The next morning we went to look for a bus but again everything was immensely expensive and the bus didn’t leave in several hours so again we decided to take a por puesto to Cumana.

At this time we were both in a pretty bad mood. We had planned to go to the Angel Falls and other spectacular places in Venezuela before going to Manaus in Brazil to take a boat along the Amazonas but now it was too expensive so we knew we had to change our plans. In Venezuela you need to bring lots of dollars to change at the black market. The official rate is horrible but even with the black market it's not cheap. We only had 100 dollars and they disappeared faster than a fart in a thunderstorm.

We arrived in Cumana without needing to be body searched again. Although this time, we had a 10 minute long arguing with the driver who wanted to rip us off. Luckily, he didn’t succeed. Thank God for our Spanish lessons! We went looking for a hostel but again they were all too expensive. We went inside a hostel that had WiFi and went online to see if we had received any couchsurfing replies. Luckily, there was a girl called Damiana who had answered. We instantly gave her a call and she said she would be there in an hour.

Meanwhile, we sat down and met another backpacker, a French man. We shared a pizza and he even bought us some beer. Finally, we could relax a little and laughed again. When Damiana came we were happy to be rescued. We jumped into her car and went to her home which was in this really lovely neighborhood where every house was unique and personal. Inside we were welcomed by her sweet mother and three jumping dogs.

We ended up staying with Dana for four days. Sunday night we wanted to experience something true "Venezuelan style". Something we could never ever experience in Sweden. We bought beer just by sticking out our heads from inside a car by the side of the road on a Sunday night! This is what the Cumana people do. They take their cars to this place, which was next to the sea, to drink beer, turn up their music real high and hang out. Then they drive back home.

On the other days we went to the beach, walked around the city and went to a really beautiful castillio and watched the sunset. By now, you all know we never get tired of sunsets.

We also played cards one night while drinking a bottle of Cuban Rum we had bought in Cuba and eating Ahlgrens bilar. After glasses of rum and vodka Chris could suddenly speak Spanish better than ever before and lectured Damiana and her friend about the Vikings and Gustav Vasa.
Time was running away and we decided we would change our plans and go to Colombia instead. To do this we had to take the bus to Caracas, change there and go to Maracaibo before entering Colombia.
Monday night we took the bus to Caracas. 7 hours later we arrived in Caracas where we bought a new bus ticket for Maracaibo, a 13 hours bus trip.

Esteff

written by  Steffi & Chris on December 1, 2009 from Cumana, Venezuela
from the travel blog: 212 days
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In the morning, we got up when Fabricio and his sister was leaving for work and we got a ride to a bus station and from there we took the bus to where Connie and her family lives. She lives high up in an apartment building together with her mom, brother and their two fat cats.

They have an amazing view over parts of the city we had also brought our bags and while we went out to see the city Connies mom helped us and washed our clothes, we thought we were in heaven! Or maybe just back home in Sweden =) Any how we felt really at home in a very warm and beautiful home.

That same day we went walking and was walking for about 5 hours seeing alot of things like churches, an art museum, a marketplace, the post office and also the “amazing” plaza bolivar which according to our guide book is a must-see... It's not.

In the evening we went to the Vereda del Lago park which is a huge park basically but since it was dark we didn’t really see any of it we did buy an ice tea though and sat down for a while just talking.

Next of what would become our last day in Maracaibo we actually spent by doing nothing much at all, we had planned to go to a museum but we all just felt like doing not much at all so we hung out and I got a good chance to improve my Spanish a little bit, I even got a much needed private lesson.

The washing machine

At night we bought a box of beers and some ice, and to keep the beer cold was keept in the washing machine!
We hung out at Fabricios and his sisters place,and had a really chilled out and relaxed evening where people dropped in and hung out with everybody.

All in all we had an amazing stay in Maracaibo as well, so although we left Venezuela quite quickly we got too meet some really nice people and have some good times. A special thanks also to Connies mum for her hospitality and her how-to-make-arepas lesson. Your food was out of this world!

When writing this I’m laying in a hammock in Taganga drinking a beer and being very relaxed, it’s good to have a holiday.

Ciao mis amigos
Chris!

written by  Steffi & Chris on December 3, 2009 from Maracaibo, Venezuela
from the travel blog: 212 days
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